The Seeker and the Dandelion Bird
by SythiaSkyfire
Summary: Peeta Mellark, human rebel, has been captured by Seekers. Leaves Lifted to the Stars, a soul, is inserted into him. Soon, he learns that resistant hosts are more than just the stuff of rumor. Peeta and Leaves start off on a journey to find the person Peeta loves the most... But what and who is waiting for them at the end of the road? Hunger Games/Host crossover.
1. Chapter 1

**The Hunger Games / The Host crossover!**

**Yes, I know this is in the Hunger Games fanfiction category and not the Hunger Games / Host Crossover category. This is intentional. There were some bugs on the site, and in the end it was easier to put the story in the regular Hunger Games category. Sorry for any inconvenience. :)**

**I know some of you have been waiting patiently since I announced there would be a crossover, and I thank you for that. It's much appreciated.**

**If you have time, a review would help me out a lot. :)**

**_Disclaimer: because this is a crossover, I will be using a lot of direct quotes - mostly dialogue - from both books. Anything you recognize, such as characters, quotes, etc., I do not own. I don't own the images used in the cover, either, though I did put it together to make the overall cover image. So no suing, please. :) This disclaimer pertains to all the chapters in this story._**

**If you'd like more information on how the story will be structured / how both books will be incorporated into it, feel free to stop by my profile. All will be explained there.**

**With that out of the way, here it is!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Leaves Lifted to the Stars, former Flower, was drifting towards consciousness.

He remembered, vaguely, that there was something he was supposed to do. What was it? It was hard to think. The very words within his thoughts distracted him. Such an odd language. Verbal. Made up of separate sounds put together to convey ideas. He had been told the basics before he left the Flower Planet, of course, but actually experiencing it was something else entirely.

Then he remembered. He was supposed to brace himself for the first memory. Or, rather, the last memory. He had been warned multiple times of how difficult it would be – human emotions were, reportedly, far stronger and less predictable than those of the other species the souls had inhabited.

He braced himself.

It wasn't enough.

_The cold air sears my throat and lungs, but I keep pulling it in, taking deep, desperate gulps. If I stop running, they'll catch me. If I slow at all, they'll catch me. I have to keep running._

His lungs were, once again, sucking in the air. Deep, desperate gulps. But instead of the cold he was expecting, the air that entered his body was mild, almost warm, and smelled of… Mint?

He had never smelled anything before. None of the other host species possessed that sense. For just a second, it was enough to keep him in the moment. But the memory was too strong to be suppressed by something as simple as a scent.

_Loose stones shift under my feet. I can feel the sharp edges through the worn soles of my shoes. Pebbles bounce down the slope – not from my movements, but disturbed by a source above and behind me. The rocks hiss as they slide downwards, dislocated by my flailing feet. In this way, I have an advantage over the Seekers: they are being careful. I am not. They do not want to trip and fall, possibly breaking a bone, while that is the least of my worries._

_They call to me to slow down. I move even faster._

_"Please!" one yells. "Don't hurt yourself!"_

_A painful, grating bark of laughter bursts from my chest. Even now, while chasing me down like a fox in the woods, they are concerned for my safety._

Once again, Leaves Lifted to the Stars was wrenched from the memory by a foreign sensation. This time it was an emotion. Thick, hot and sharp, it sliced through him like a blade. Even as he shied away from the image, his body identified the feeling for him: _anger_. He had experienced irritation before, of course, but never anything as powerful and ugly as this. His pulse pounded in his temples – yet another new sensation – and he was plunged back into the memory.

_The slope ends abruptly and I lurch forward, almost landing on my hands and knees, before compensating for the change. My limbs are like wooden clubs, barely responding to my mind's urging. It's impossible to tell exactly how fast I'm going, but I know it can't be fast enough. More than once, I slam into a slender trunk, sending the branches above me rattling. The frigid burn that used to be concentrated in my throat and lungs now extends to my entire body. I don't have much time left before my legs give out, and when they do, the Seekers will catch me._

_And they'll turn me into one of them._

_They'll find – _

_A fresh wave of panic claws at me, renewing my energy with yet another dose of adrenaline. I can't let that happen. I won't._

_But I can't keep running forever. _

_There has to be another way…_

_And then, I see it. The dull red glow through the vertical, gray shadows of the trees. The three dots of white light approaching. There is another way._

Leaves Lifted to the Stars screamed. At least, that was the word that came to him when a shrill, hoarse wail pierced his eardrums. The air pushed painfully through his airways, like the colder-than-cold air in the woods. He knew what was about to happen. He twisted, trying to get away, to separate himself from the memory, but it was no use.

_No way to survive, but perhaps a way to win._

No, no, no!

_They see where I am going, and their calls become more frantic. "Please! There is danger ahead!"_

_I know._

_The white lights are now closer, more distinct, and with them, the quick, rushing pulse, so fast it's almost one continuous noise. I measure the space between myself and the tracks, and almost laugh again in relief. I will have enough time._

_The strident whistle of the train penetrates the night. I'm almost there. _

_But then I realize something. The quick pulse – the chugging of the engine – is less rapid. The train is slowing down. Why is it slowing down? No matter. It won't have time to stop, anyway. The railroad crossing sign, lit up by two dull red bulbs, rings shrilly, like an out-of-tune bell. The train is so close, and so _loud_, that everything around me shakes. The track, the trees, my very bones vibrate. I hurdle over the lowered bar and cross the last few yards to the tracks._

_My sneakers skid on the wooden slates._

_I can see the Seekers – they're racing past the sign – the lights of the train bore into my eyes, blinding me – I can feel it coming – I can feel it, but I can't see it – I can't – _

_ I'm numb. Everything is numb. I think I was hit, but I –_

_Pain._

_And then nothing._

The memory was finally, mercifully, over. Leaves Lifted to the Stars trembled. He had been warned about the intensity of human experiences, but no amount of warnings could have prepared him. He let the minty air rush through his parted lips, forcing his breaths to slow. _Just a memory,_ he told himself. _It's over._

Then, as if hearing his thought and proving him wrong out of spite, the memory – the cold, the wind, the smell of pine and smoke – engulfed him once more. He gasped, panicking, desperate not to endure it again. But it wasn't the same memory at all. It was a memory within a memory. Two disconnected images: first, a bright yellow flower, blooming against the nothingness, and then a… a… a small animal, with two spindly limbs underneath it and two larger, wider, softer ones on top. _A bird,_ he remembered, drawing on the past experiences of the body. _His _body.

The bird in his memory cocked its head, snapping an obsidian-black beak and blinking with bright, intelligent eyes. When it spread its two larger appendages – wings, his memory supplied – to glide away, it revealed an uneven patch of white on the underside of each.

He flailed in the blackness left behind by the fading images. Why? Why would those things, so completely separate from the horrible almost-end this body had suffered, be included in the last memory? He tried to conjure up the yellow flower again, but it was harder than he had expected. The image wasn't as clear as it had been the first time.

It was small and top-heavy, with layers upon layers of tiny, golden petals and a thin, pale green tube for a stem. Not much of a flower.

He had been a Flower, in his last life. He focused on this, grateful for the peaceful images. They calmed him enough to try moving.

As soon as he made the decision to move, he realized that his eyes were still closed. Immediately, he was struck with the desire to open them. Even this one, simple wish was strong and sharp. _Everything here is so intense, _he thought to himself as he searched for the right muscles. _How does anyone ever get used to it?_

Ah. There they were. His eyelids rose a tiny bit, enough to let in a thin, blinding line of white light. He cringed, snapping them closed, as the memory of the white lights of the train washed over him. It was better, this time. It didn't overwhelm him as it had at first. After a few seconds, he tried again, this time waiting for his eyes to adjust before opening them further.

As he waited for the light to dim, a sound prodded at him, catching his attention. Voices. One male, and one female. The female was the one currently speaking.

"… to know if there are others," she hissed.

Hissed?

Yes. The words were low and harsh. Familiar, to this mind, but completely alien to him. Souls didn't argue, so they had no reason to use the unpleasant tone.

The man responded, "He was alone. You saw that for yourself, did you not?" His voice was milder, lacking the severely precise inflections that the woman's carried.

"But there could have been others somewhere else," she pressed. "Hiding. You know how tricky they can be."

"Regardless, it's not fair to question him. Not now." The man exhaled heavily. "He's already been through so much."

"He's healed," the woman said shortly. "That was your job."

So, the man was a healer.

"Yes." Though the word was affirmative, it didn't sound like an agreement. "Seeker, give him time. It would be hard enough, considering the host's past, but with… Well, with the way that he… was caught, don't you think he deserves some time to rest?"

It was then that he realized, belatedly, that he was the subject of their conversation. Hastily, he flipped through their words, finding new meaning in them now that he knew this. _"If there are others?" _Other what? Other humans? _"With the way he was caught?"_ They must mean the train.

He shuddered.

The movement didn't seem to alert the other souls to his eavesdropping. _Ugh- eavesdropping_. The word sent twinges of guilt through him. He shouldn't be listening to their conversation if they thought it was private. So, instead, he went searching for answers. The Seeker wanted to know if there were other humans with his host when he was caught. He would find out. Why wait?

This time, the pain was minimal. He could go through the memory quickly, skipping to the end, before circling back to the beginning. He was running… But what was before that? Before the woods, before the hill, before the… the… He hit a wall. There was nothing there, but that couldn't be right. There had to be _something_. He pushed against it, trying to break through.

The thought echoed in his head, but it was not his own.

_No._

He stiffened in shock. Had it been part of the memory? It didn't feel like a memory. It was too immediate, too present to be a memory. But, then, what was it?

He let another minute pass, during which the Healer and the Seeker continued to argue, and then tentatively tried again. Before the hill, there had been a stretch of low, sparse grass, and before that there was… The wall came up again.

_No._

The thought that was not his own was louder, more insistent than before.

_Mine_.

_Mine,_ he thought back. _This is my body. This is me now._

_No._

Confusion and trepidation rolled over him, sending his heart into a rapid, jumping tempo, twisting in his chest as if trying to escape it. Host bodies didn't talk back. That was the point. Up until now, nothing like this had ever happened. But… there had been rumors, on the Flower Planet… Beside him, the steady beeping that matched the pumps of his heart increased in tempo. There was a flash of movement at the edge of his vision, and his head automatically snapped towards it.

The Healer and the Seeker stood there, close together, leaning towards each other. The human bodies that Leaves Lifted to the Stars had only even seen in routine briefings and in one short memory – a shiver pricked at the base of his neck – were mostly what he had expected. Two legs and two arms, with a mostly-rectangular torso. Heads on top. Other than that, the features and traits of the species were unfamiliar to him, and he took some time to examine them.

The first thing that stood out to him about the woman was her hair – a sculpted crest of pale gold that was held back by a wide band of black fabric and fell behind her shoulders in a straight, even curtain. A matching black suit hugged her from neck to ankles. Her pointed chin, accented by the stubborn way she jutted it out, and the sharp bones below her cheeks gave her face a hard look. Her eyes were hard, too, like flat rings of turquoise. He didn't need his new human intuition to know that this face belonged to someone unpleasant.

But, no. She was a soul, now. Maybe she had been someone unpleasant, at one point, but not anymore.

Still, when those turquoise eyes locked on him, unblinking, he shifted his gaze uncomfortably to the Healer. A softer, darker face smiled at him from under a tidy mass of short, nondescript brown hair. The almond-shaped green eyes, he noted with some surprise, were lined with a touch of gold.

"Welcome to Earth," the Healer said. He approached the elevated place where Leaves Lifted to the Stars was lying. "My name is Burns to Cinders. You may call me Cinna, if you wish. That is my name here. What shall we call you?"

Opening his mouth felt strange. The tendons at the joints of his jaw stretched and the minty smell he had noted earlier misted over his tongue, leaving the faintest of tastes behind it. Hesitantly, relying on his body's muscle memory to guide him, he said, "I'm… called… Leaves Lifted… to the Stars."

The woman went to join him at the side of the cot, her shoes tapping out the impatient rhythm of her footsteps. "When will you be ready to answer questions?" she demanded.

"Give him time," the Healer admonished gently. He turned back to Leaves Lifted to the Stars. "How do you feel?"

"Not bad… Not good. Strange." Speaking was getting easier. His mouth knew how to make the sounds, and his brain knew what sounds to make. As long as he didn't concentrate on it too hard, it was simple. "Healer, have I been placed in a damaged body?"

Cinna's eyes grew wide in alarm. "Absolutely not. We healed it completely before you were inserted."

"Then why are there walls?" Anger flared up in him again, and again he cringed away from it.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. What walls?"

"Around some memories. Like they're being blocked."

The Seeker placed her palms on the edge of his cot, leaning towards him. Her hair swung forward, into the bright light that shone from above, and her eyes cast dancing silver reflections on the wall. "What _do_ you remember?"

"Seeker, please," Cinna began, but Leaves Lifted to the Stars opened his mouth to speak anyway.

"He was being chased by Seekers. He rain in front of a train." He winced and went on quickly. "He thought it would kill him, but it didn't. The train must have seen him in time and slowed down."

"Yes, yes, but before that? What was he doing there? How did he get there?"

These memories came slowly. They were obstructed by a fog, not blocked by a wall. "He was… looking for… something. It was important. It was… It was… The…"

"Don't push yourself," Cinna advised. "Start with the simplest things. His name, for example."

This piece of information, for the first time, came easily. "His name was Peeta Mellark."

"Good." Cinna smiled encouragingly. "What else?"

"He grew up in the mountains. Appalachia." Yes, this was much easier. Simple. "He grew up with his brothers. When we started colonizing, he escaped into the wilderness with… Hmm."

"Were there others?" the Seeker asked.

"Yes," he blurted, surprised.

The Seeker's eyebrows shot up.

"There were others. They –"

Without warning, a new memory surged up to consume him. It was just this: a face. It was a young woman, maybe somewhere in her late teens. Her stardust-silver eyes contained none of the reflective silver sheen of a soul. Her skin, a dusky shade of olive, defined her as someone who spent a lot of time out of doors, and her sleek, dark hair was pulled back in a messy French braid. A scattering of small freckles ran across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. In his memory, the girl blinked at him, short, black lashes leaving shadowy fringes on her cheeks.

As strong as the memory was, it brought on something even stronger – a strange, sweet, deep-rooted ache. And, just like the voice that shouldn't have existed, it didn't come from him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello!**

**Thank you for the lovely follows and reviews. :) They're so much appreciated, you have no idea.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter Two**

_For the first time in weeks, our stomachs ache not from hollowness, but from being full. The three of us are stuffed in the tiny sliver of a cave, but I don't mind. The tight quarters just provide extra warmth. And that's something we need, given the temperature of the rain slicing across the entrance to the cave. Like ice. Despite our best efforts to block the hole with a sheet of dirty tarpaulin, our clothes and backpacks are damp._

_"Peeta," she half-yawns from under my arm. I shift so I can see her face. "You said the other day you'd had a crush on me forever." She's looking down at her fingers, avoiding my gaze. The dim, unnatural neon light of the glow sticks we loosely hold turns her hands greenish. "When did forever start?"_

_"Oh, let's see." I pull her closer, being careful not to disturb the gently snoring blonde head between us. "I guess that was the first day of school. We were five. You had on a red plaid dress and your hair… It was in two braids instead of one. My father pointed you out when we were waiting to line up."_

_I smile sadly as I remember. My father… He's probably one of_ them,_ now. Like my brothers. Like everyone._

_"Your father? Why?"_

_"He said, 'See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner.'"_

_It was quite a scandal in our little mining town, tucked in the folds between two great mountains. Even more than a decade later, it would come up in conversation sometimes, over pitchers of hand-squeezed lemonade and half-finished laundry. That was before _they_ came. After that, no one was left to talk about it. And whoever remained was too busy running to give any thought to old stories._

_Until, it seems, today._

_She scowls, making the freckles on her cheeks bunch up. "What? You're making that up!"_

_"No, true story," I laugh, then look down to make sure we haven't woken the little girl curled up between us. Lowering my voice, "And I said, 'A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner when she could've had you?' And he said, 'Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen.'"_

_"That's true," she murmurs, voice suddenly thick. "They do. I mean, they did."_

_I stroke her hair thoughtfully as I go on. "So that day, in music assembly, the teacher asked who knew the valley song. Your hand shot right up in the air. She stood you up on a stool and had you sing it for us. And I swear, every bird outside the windows fells silent."_

_Now she laughs. "Oh, please."_

_"No, it happened. And right when your song ended, I knew – just like your mother – I was a goner. Then for the next eleven years, I tried to work up the nerve to talk to you."_

_"Without success."_

_"Without success," I agree. "So, in a way, the world ending was a real piece of luck."_

_Of course, I'm joking. Luck? No. Luck was all three of us standing together when the news came on. Luck was guessing that something terrible was happening – and doing something about it even before we were proved right. Luck was finding the keys to someone's jeep tucked underneath the visor. Luck was lying hidden, camouflaged in a mud bank, while our friends and family searched for us with reflective eyes, leading teams of Seekers._

_Luck is cruel._

_But._

_I press my lips to the top of her head, breathing in the spicy, clean scent of pine that lingers there. We're alive. We're ourselves. We're together. And that's all I can ask for._

* * *

It seemed that the smell of pine and rain remained far after he woke up. He lay still for a long time, letting his gaze wander over the pattern-less dots on the tiles of his ceiling. The apartment he lived in was old – old enough to still have radiators, white paint chipping, standing proudly against walls; doors that unlocked with heavy metal keys instead of plastic cards; light, cheery, honey-colored wood paneling instead of wallpaper. It smelled perpetually of coffee and dust. He breathed in this scent now, filling his lungs with it and holding it in his chest before exhaling again. Again and again. Still, the clean, spicy smell – pine and rain – lingered. As if he still had his nose buried in her hair.

He sat up so suddenly that the blood drained from his head, leaving him dizzy. He stood, grimacing, and stumbled his way across the room to his desk. The white-blue light of his computer screen, so dim in the daytime, now pierced his sleep-heavy eyes with the intensity of the sun. He screwed his eyes shut, twisting away from the sharp glow, while the laptop whirred. Slowly, he re-opened his eyes, squinting against the brilliance until he could adjust the brightness. He opened a message screen.

In the last few weeks, the dreams had been growing more and more frequent. They had been disrupting his sleep schedule. He was tired during the day, and hadn't been able to perform his Calling as well as he should have. Reporting the dreams would help put a stop to them. It was the logical thing to do. They needed to end.

At least, that's what he told himself.

There were very few contacts listed on his message page: his Healer, Cinna, his Seeker, his Comforter and a colleague from his Calling. He shifted stacks of ink-stained paper and speckled composition books aside to make room for his elbows, then selected the Seeker's address. His fingers hovered over the keys.

_Don't do this._

Leaves Lifted to the Stars jumped violently and a mug of fountain pens clattered to the rug. The voice in his head was quiet, but undeniably _there_. It was Peeta Mellark's voice, he was sure. He hadn't 'spoken' since the day of the insertion. Leaves Lifted to the Stars had thought he was gone. He had thought the only thing left of his host body were the startlingly vivid dreams.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

His fingers, now shaking, lowered onto the keys. It was a familiar feeling, by now. His Calling involved just as much time hunched over a computer or notebook as it did travelling to events and interviewing souls.

**Peeta Mellark was travelling with two girls he knew from his home town.** He typed as quickly as he could. He had to go back and correct several typos. **Sisters. One older, maybe sixteen, with dark hair and one younger, about twelve, and blonde.**

Something akin to panic constricted his throat, and he gave up on fixing his typos as he rushed on. **The three of them were staying in some sort of cave, somewhere near West Virginia, I think. They had stolen a Jeep, and used it to travel Southwest. That was a while ago, though. A year at least. The sisters must be around thirteen and seventeen, now, maybe a little older.**

He rolled the cursor over the _send_ button. The message contained all the new information he had gleaned from the dream. He was ready to send it. But he couldn't.

_Don't do this,_ Peeta Mellark said once more. His voice was louder, nearly as loud as if it has been spoken aloud, and Leaves Lifted to the Stars shivered.

He placed his hand on the mouse, staring resolutely at the little, rectangular button on the screen.

This time, it was a growl. _I won't let you._

The soul gasped at the secondhand determination and anger that crashed through him. His whole body shook. His hands ached with the desire to erase the message, delete the draft and slam shut the screen. The urge was so strong it was physically painful. He grit his teeth, trying to fight past it.

_I need to do this,_ he told himself sternly. _The Seeker needs information._

This was the wrong thing to think. Another, stronger shudder of anger – no, hate – wracked his body. It rolled off Peeta's now-silent presence in hot, sickening waves. He had never, not even just after the insertion, been so strong in his head.

He fumbled as he yanked the mouse across the desk, highlighting the text and wiping it out of existence with one key stroke. The frame of the screen came down so forcefully he thought he might have cracked it.

Leaves Lifted to the Stars twisted his hands together, the crest of adrenaline slowly draining from his body. Fear replaced it, cold on his skin and stiff in his spine. Peeta Mellark hadn't taken over, he knew that for sure. It had been _his_ hands that erased the message, _his_ hands that snapped shut the screen. He, Leaves Lifted to the Stars, had done it. But it had been Peeta's will.

His fingernails dug into his scalp as he clutched at his head, as if trying to physically drive the other consciousness out. However, Peeta Mellark was now nowhere to be found. He and his will had vanished, dissolved into nothing like smoke, the moment the message had been erased. He was barely there in Leaves Lifted to the Stars' head, almost nonexistent, as he had been for the past three weeks. As the threat has passed, so had he.

Slumping against the padded back of his chair, Leaves Lifted to the Stars ran his fingers through his hair unhappily, looking blindly ahead at the inky room, now so dark after his exposure to the light of the computer screen. Slowly, he dragged open the laptop again and opened another message screen. Peeta stirred restlessly in the back of his mind, but settled again when he clicked the address of his Comforter. He would have to visit her tomorrow.

* * *

Effervescent Trinket had an office that matched her name. Bright, cheery curtains hung on either side of the wide windows, beyond which a busy intersection buzzed with cars. Glass baubles lined her desk and hung from the ceiling. Potted plants with large, fragrant flowers squatted in two of the four corners. Leaves Lifted to the Stars stared into his own eyes in the small mirror that hung on the west wall, opposite the windows. He had gotten used to the way his body looked, after a month of living on Earth. Broad-shouldered and of average height, taller than most women but shorter than some of the taller men. A square jaw, pale skin and ashy blonde hair that he usually stuffed under a hat. And his eyes, dark blue under a sheen of silver. It was all the same as it had been the day before, but somehow, it felt different. Looking at his own eyes, he thought he could see someone else. Could the other souls see it, too? Could they tell he was slowly losing control?

The door opened with a crisp click and Effervescent Trinket's high, high heels – how she could walk in those things, he would never know – tapped across the wood floor. She was a happy, energetic woman, as her name suggested. She almost always wore a type of uncomfortable-looking shoes she called stilettos, and her hair was a different color almost every time he came to see her. Today it was bubblegum pink. One of the things the souls had kept, simply for amusement, was temporary hair dye. Very few people actually used it, preferring their natural hair color, but, then, very few people were like Effervescent Trinket. She was one of the extremely rare souls that could almost be called vain.

"Good morning!" she chirped, settling herself in one of the plush chairs. "It's going to be a big, big, big day!"

"It is?" he asked, perching on the edge of a chair opposite her.

"Yes," she said with fervor, setting her mug down on the low table between them. "Today is exactly one month after your insertion. It's a big stepping stone!"

His polite smile collapsed in on itself. His one-month stepping stone, and he was here to tell her that he had failed.

Her own red-glossed smile turned down. "What's wrong, Leaves Lifted to the Stars?"

He dawdled. "Well… You see, Comforter…"

"I have asked you to call me Effie," she reminded him gently.

"Effie," he conceded, "I… had another dream last night."

Her forehead crinkled in concern. It was much easier, now, to read emotions. At first, the tiny movements of the muscles in the face, the slight shifts in posture, were completely inscrutable. "Would you like to tell me about it?"

"It was in a cave," he began slowly. "Not even a cave, really. A crack in a rock formation just large enough for them all to fit into. Peeta Mellark and the two sisters he was travelling with. The girl asked…" He trailed off, suddenly unable to force words past the lump in his throat. "She asked when…"

Switching to an easier path, he instead went on, "They were comfortable. Full. They had eaten recently. It was raining, and very cold, but they were huddled together for warmth. They had glow sticks."

Effie nodded quietly, indicating for him to go on.

"He and the older sister were talking, and she asked…"

"What did she ask?" she prompted. "You can tell me anything, you know."

"I know," he replied automatically. "It's difficult. The memory is… strong."

Her eyebrows lifted. "Memory? I thought it was simply a dream."

Sighing at himself for giving this away – although, he didn't know why he felt as if it should be a secret – he said, "It felt like a memory. It felt like the other ones."

The other snatches of memory he had been piecing together for the past month and turning in to the Seeker, one by one, like a trail leading to the two sisters' demise. He recoiled from the unexpected direction of his thoughts.

Effie was saying, "What do you mean by 'strong'? Do you mean they affect you strongly?"

"Yes." One knee bounced, as was his body's habit, as he tried to collect his thoughts. "It's hard to separate myself from them, sometimes."

"Everyone's first year is hard," she sympathized. "I used to tear up at the smell of a certain perfume. Don't feel bad for struggling with the emotions. It's not you, remember, it's this world. Human emotions are often difficult."

"I just wish they'd stay in the past, where they belong," he sulked, resting his chin on one loosely curled fist.

Effie was quiet for a moment, allowing him to work through his pouting fit. Then she said, "Is there anything else you'd like to talk about, specifically?"

He forced himself to stop tapping his foot and looked straight into Effie's pink-shadowed eyes. If he was going to tell her, now was the time. "Yes," he said quietly. Then, straightening, he cleared his throat. "Yes. There's…"

She nodded encouragingly.

"There's…" He bailed. "My Calling is going well."

She looked disappointed, like she knew he hadn't told her something important. "Oh," she said mildly. "Good. Tell me about it."

"I enjoy Recording. It suits my skills well, I think."

"I read your article on the river that flooded. It was well written."

"Thank you."

"It's a shame about that couple's house, but at least they're comfortably settled in a new one."

"Yes. I spoke to them recently to make sure they were happy with the new neighborhood."

They conversed like this for some minutes, keeping to the simple, polite topics, until Leaves Lifted to the Stars looked to the clock hanging above the desk. "I should go," he said, standing. "I don't want to keep you any longer."

"I have nothing I need to do." She smiled. "It's almost lunch time, anyway. Why don't we get something to eat?"

He agreed, and they walked the short distance to the small café just across the street. Effie ordered a health shake and a pita wrap sandwich, while Leaves Lifted to the Stars asked only for a cup of iced tea. They sat at the wobbling metal table beside the sidewalk, watching the traffic crawl by. Effie greeted many people that passed on the sidewalk by name and Leaves Lifted to the Stars stirred packet after packet of Splenda into his tea. He would have used real sugar, but decided it wasn't worth the disapproving look he knew Effie would give him if she caught him eating anything unhealthy. Effie, vain as she was, was rather strict about junk food.

Even so, he watched her suppress a grimace at the amount of sweetener he poured into the flimsy paper cup, where it sifted through the ice and settled at the bottom, dissolving slowly in the cold liquid. "Sweet tooth?" she asked, obviously making an effort not to reprimand him.

"Not really." He shrugged. "It just bothers-" He bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood, silently screaming at himself to be quiet.

Too late.

"Bothers who?" Now she did reprimand him. "You should not seek to bother _anyone_, Leaves Lifted to the Stars. Why would you act like this?" Her eyes were once again full of disappointment, and this time it was mixed with a confusion and betrayal that cut him to the core.

Shamefully, he tucked his chin down. "Peeta," he confessed, so quietly he was sure she hadn't heard him. Peeta did, though. Instantly, he was very much aware, flitting from thought to thought, his alarm buzzing through Leaves Lifted to the Stars in little shocks.

"I'm sorry, what?" Effie asked.

He took a breath. "Peeta. He doesn't like sugar in his tea. It's too sweet. It bothers him."

Effie, as good at her Calling as she was, couldn't hide her shock. "You… He… he's that _present?_"

"When he wants to be." The confession brought forth both relief, from him, and panic, from Peeta. He did not want to be discovered.

"Oh, my goodness!" Effie gasped. "Oh, dear! Oh, my goodness! Oh, you poor thing! No wonder you've been having trouble! Don't you worry, now. We're going to get you to a Healer right away. Come along, we'll fix this."

It took him a moment to realize what she was saying. Then an unexpected emotion rose up in him – _from_ him. Not from Peeta, this time. "You want me to _skip?_" he said indignantly.

Skippers were looked down on in all worlds. It was bad form to leave a body before completing its full life term. Impolite. The closest thing the souls had to a taboo.

Effie was already standing, holding her cup so tightly that health smoothie leaked from under the plastic lid. "Oh, dear, no one would blame you for it. A defective host is a unique situation."

"He's not defective, I am. I'm too weak for this world!" He rubbed his hands over his face, nerves frayed. He was, as the saying went, at the end of his rope. It was an apt description, he thought - the feeling of dangling, barely hanging on, over some mysterious fate below.

Their increasingly loud conversation had begun to draw attention, and Effie took him by the arm, pulling him out of his chair and leading him back across the road, waving reassurances at the worried souls nearby. As they walked, she spoke. "Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?"

"It wasn't _this_ bad until last night." They slipped through the glass doors, into the air conditioned main lobby. He went on quietly, wary of being overheard and reluctant to further admit to his weakness. "He's been _there_ on and off since… Well, the insertion, but he's never spoken except for at the very beginning, and then again last night."

"Spoken?"

They finally reached her office again and she closed the door softly behind them.

"Not aloud. In my head."

Effie regarded him carefully, peering into his silvery eyes. "My dear," she said seriously, "I know you don't want to skip, but I really do recommend changing to another body. If this one is resistant, nothing good will come of keeping it."

He nodded pensively, and then, realizing something, said, "Wait – keeping it? What will happen to it when I switch?"

"I suppose the Seeker would get the information she needed," Effie shrugged, "And then we wouldn't need it anymore."

Then he understood. They would discard the body. They'd kill Peeta Mellark. This was standard procedure on all planets. A damaged host was no use to the souls, and therefore wasn't needed to be kept around. That's the way it was. Like replacing a broken phone. Never before had it struck him as cruel.

Souls – cruel? What was becoming of him? What was _he_ becoming?

Peeta chose this moment to speak up. His tone was intentionally quiet, intense with some emotion. _Please. Don't kill me. I need to live. Please._

_Why?_ he challenged.

His response was immediate. _She needs me._

_The girl?_ Her face filled his thoughts, and this time, it came with a name. _Katniss?_ Even spoken silently, in his mind, the sound of it made his heart give a strange little twist.

_Yes,_ Peeta sighed. _You've seen my memories. You know I'm telling the truth. She needs me. They both do. I can't die. Not without even trying._

_Trying what?_ he asked, but he was distracted by the truth of Peeta's words. He barely knew anything about the girl - Katniss - from the dreams, but he just _knew_ she would suffer without him. No, not without him. Without Peeta. And he did not want her to suffer. With a passion that scared him, he did not want Katniss to suffer from _anything_, be it cold or hunger or fear... Or the loss of Peeta.

_Please don't do what she said. Don't leave them all alone._

Leaves Lifted to the Stars breathed out shakily. "I'm not going to skip," he said aloud. Then, speaking to Effie, Peeta and himself all at once, "I won't let him take control. I'm strong enough for this."

He only wished his words would prove true.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello!**

**Don't worry, we will be coming to the caves very soon. In the meantime, please do enjoy!**

**:)**

* * *

Talking to Peeta proved to be Leaves Lifted to the Stars' first big mistake.

It started just a day after his visit with Effervescent Trinket. He was standing at his kitchen window, stirring another sugar cube into his tea, gazing tranquilly at the hazy, blue pre-dawn beyond the glass. The soft light was a welcome change from the complete darkness that always greeted him when he surfaced from the dreams. And, of course, the dreams were what had woken him. He took a small, sweet, scalding sip and then hastily set the mug on the counter. The residual heat on his palms contrasted sharply with the damp chill of the memory that had roused him.

His thoughts latched unbidden onto the events of the day before. He remembered how strong Peeta Mellark had been, inside his head, and cringed. Stronger still was the sharp longing that still echoed through his bones every time Katniss's face passed through his thoughts. Which was often.

He shoved those thoughts away, snatching up his mug and purposely taking a large gulp, burning his tongue and throat. The momentary pain distracted him from the images of the olive-skinned girl, hiking through the forest, a pair of soft leather boots laced up to her knees and her dark braid swinging behind her…

_Stop,_ he told himself firmly. _That was before. That was _him_. This is me now._

This was when Peeta Mellark spoke up. _It doesn't have to be like that._

Leaves Lifted to the Stars sucked in an involuntary breath through his teeth. It still rattled him badly every time Peeta had something to say.

He hadn't planned on answering, but Peeta's words sparked his curiosity. He was a Recorder, after all. Asking questions was his job. His words came slowly, as if each was forcefully pried from his lips, one after the other. "What do you mean?"

_I mean, we don't have to be enemies._

This was so unexpected that Leaves Lifted to the Stars actually found himself considering it. Not enemies? That was good, wasn't it? Souls didn't have enemies, only friends and allies. Could he count Peeta among his allies? How?

"Don't you hate me?" he asked, speaking aloud again.

Peeta's emotions bubbled uneasily, stirred up by the not-so-simple question. _I… Not… you. I don't think I hate _you_, in particular._

He thought about this. Peeta was a human. If it was difficult for souls to sort out human emotions, it must have been even more so for the humans themselves. He couldn't blame Peeta for his hate, no matter where it was directed. And, on top of that, Peeta seemed genuine in his extension of… Friendship? He couldn't be sure. Whatever it was, he decided, it was worth at least trying.

"All right," he sighed, "Not enemies. What now?"

_I'm not sure,_ Peeta answered, but his response was vague, curtained by some unclear intent.

He shifted uncomfortably, wary of the curtain between himself and whatever Peeta was hiding. Peeta, maybe sensing the direction of his thoughts, went on, _We don't have to do anything about it just yet. Let's just wait awhile and see what happens._

"All right," he said again.

Peeta faded complacently to the back of his mind, then abruptly returned long enough to say, _Leaves Lifted to the Stars, is it?_

"Yes."

_That's kind of long. Mind if I call you a nickname?_

"I don't have one."

_Then I'll give you one,_ Peeta decided happily. _How about… Leaf?_

Leaf. Not a bad name. Simple. Calm. He liked it.

Peeta picked up on his acceptance of the new name. _Leaf it is,_ he almost laughed.

That was the first time they spoke.

* * *

The next time they 'spoke', Leaves Lifted to the Stars – Leaf, now – was walking home from interviewing an Artist about her work. His favorite notebook, thick with hastily scribbled quotes, descriptions and photographs tucked between the pages, was tucked under his arm, and his pockets clinked with more felt-tipped and fountain pens than he really needed. A smile kept his lips turned up pleasantly, not because it was expected of him to be cheerful around other souls, but because he knew he could look forward to several hours of quality time with his work when he returned home.

He bounced on the toes of his work shoes as he waited at a crosswalk, humming to himself.

_Well, aren't we just chipper this morning,_ Peeta said mildly.

Rather than speak aloud, to himself, in the middle of a busy intersection, Leaf silently thought back, _Yes._ Then, remembering his decision to be allies – if not friends – with Peeta, he went on, _I saw some exquisite pieces of art._

_I know,_ Peeta responded, his tone amused.

Oh. Right. Of course he knew.

_Do… you like art?_ Leaf asked, struggling to keep the conversation alive without drifting towards more difficult subjects.

Enthusiasm fizzed from Peeta like little fireworks.

_I'll take that as a yes._

Leaf's grin widened a degree before he caught himself and dialed it down to a cool, polite smile. He reached the apartment building and rummaged in his pockets automatically, before remembering that he didn't need a key. Souls didn't use locks.

Peeta retreated with a, _Well, have fun with your writing, then._

And that was the end of that conversation.

But there were others.

At first only every day or two, their conversations became more frequent. Usually, Peeta initiated them, making a comment on their surroundings or asking a question about how the souls ran the world. And, as the conversations increased in frequency and length, they also became increasingly more friendly. Less stilted and formal. Two weeks passed, and in that time, Leaf learned a lot about the ghost in his head named Peeta Mellark. His favorite color was soft, sunset orange. His favorite drink was cherry Coke – _not Pepsi, mind you _– and he enjoyed watching and playing in sports.

He told Leaf all of this willingly, and yet, there was still something off. Peeta was mild in temper, eloquent in his speech and generally accepting towards Leaf and his pursuits. However, there was something underneath that. If he had been a soul, Leaf wouldn't have thought twice about it, but Peeta wasn't a soul. He was human, and Leaf told himself sternly not to forget that nearly every day. Underneath that warm polish of easy jokes and sincerity was something else, hidden behind an impenetrable wall. Leaf knew it was there, he just didn't know what it was. And Peeta was not forthcoming. Whenever it was mentioned, he would become temporarily, conveniently distracted by something, and not respond until the subject of conversation was changed.

The forboding wall never quite went away, drawing Leaf's attention like a lodestone, but most of the time he was able to at least pretend to ignore it. There were other, more interesting aspects of their minds to think about. For instance, the image that had first presented itself in Peeta's last memory. Or, rather, the _images_. The bright yellow flower, which he now recognized as a common dandelion, and the obsidian-black bird with white under its wings. Whenever the memory floated to the surface of his thoughts, Peeta would become quiet, falling back into his own sad musings, and wouldn't tell Leaf why. He didn't press. This was one memory, he could tell, that Peeta repressed not in order to hide it, but almost to hide _from_ it. It meant a lot to him. So Leaf left it alone.

The only instance in which Peeta never spoke a word was when Leaf was in the presence of either his Comforter or his Seeker. During those times, Peeta would withdraw into himself, curling into a tiny nub at the back of Leaf's mind, no more present than he had been in those weeks after the insertion. It was, Leaf thought, for the best. Those were the times when he relayed to the Seeker any information he had picked up from their conversations – which was surprisingly little. Peeta, as warm and open as he seemed, had given away very little useful information. After all, what could the Seeker do with the fact that Peeta Mellark preferred Coke to Pepsi?

These were also the times when Leaf was reminded, quite thoroughly, which side he was on. _Which side _– the words made him shiver. As if there was a battle raging. There wasn't, of course – the battle had ended long ago – but he still had the feeling of being in the middle of a two-sided conflict. On the one side: his Seeker and Comforter, and himself, attempting to locate the two other rebels his host had been travelling with, to remove the threat from the soul's world. On the other side: Peeta, and sometimes, he was ashamed to admit, himself, hoping desperately that Katniss and Prim were safely hidden and would never be found.

His duty lay with his own people. They never had and never would betray him like he would be betraying them if he listened to the insane ramblings of the emotion-muddled presence in his head. They were just two humans. Two insignificant humans who threatened the peace and security of thousands of souls. He told himself this every time he balked at presenting the Seeker with a new tidbit of information. And it worked. He told her any and every tiny bit of useful information he came up with, and for a while, he would feel better about himself. He was helping the souls. As was right.

The small victories came with a price, though: for hours afterwards, he would inevitably be consumed by a deep, cold, miserable self-loathing. Whether it came from himself or from the silent, small presence that was Peeta, he didn't know. By the next morning, he would be himself again, and could go on with his life, both he and Peeta pretending nothing had happened.

And still, the wall remained in place, blocking him completely from whatever Peeta was hiding.

* * *

"What?"

The word was almost a snarl, ripping itself from the Seeker's red, red lips. Her carefully coiffed golden hair was starting to fall flat in the heat of the sun.

Leaf repeated his words. "I'd rather drive."

The Seeker sputtered. "Wh – why in the world would you drive? Do you know how much faster it is to take a plane?"

"Yes," he agreed amiably, "I know." He slid his second suitcase into the compact trunk of his car and closed it with a dull bang. "I would still rather drive. It might give me some time to think. Maybe I'll come up with another piece of information."

He dangled the bait of new information shamelessly, not the least bit disgusted with himself for the small manipulation. If that was what it took to keep the Seeker away for a few days, so be it.

Her hard turquoise eyes glittered. "I might ride with you, then," she suggested sweetly. "Help jog some of your memories, perhaps?"

His jaw locked. She was bluffing, of course – he knew the Seeker well enough, by now, to know she would never have the patience to accompany him on the three-day journey across the blistering, dull desert. Still, the idea of her, jabbering away from the passenger seat, pressing him for new scraps of information every few minutes, waiting impatiently for him at every rest stop and gas station, sent a little shiver of repulsion down his spine. It was a chilled, almost slimy sensation, and it left behind goose bumps on his sun-heated skin.

The car door slammed shut with more force than he had intended, and the half-open glass of the window rattled as he said, "Well, you did say you've already bought your plane ticket, so I suppose I'll see you in three days." He smoothed the terse sentence with a smile, flashing his teeth before rolling closed the window and twisting the keys in the ignition.

"I'll be waiting!" the Seeker yelled through the glass, and she rapped on the car roof with her fingernails before stepping back. He backed out of the parking space and pulled away from the apartments without a backward glance. He was almost as glad to be rid of her as Peeta was.

_Finally,_ he grumbled. _Think we could stretch that three-day trip to three and a half? Maybe four?_

Leaf sighed, but he couldn't help but agree. The trip to visit his Healer, Burns to Cinders, was mostly to seek advice for his increasingly tenuous situation. Mostly. It was, admittedly, also just to escape for a while. This desire came from both of them. For Peeta, escape meant three long days of driving through the desert under the open sky. It meant sleeping in the reclined leather seat, eating car snacks like dried apples and jerky, stopping whenever he – they – wanted just to sit on the hood of the car and absorb the sun and dry, spicy air. For Leaf, it meant three days away from the Seeker. Three days to think.

Three days to decide, once and for all, whether or not he would switch bodies.

Peeta squirmed at Leaf's thoughts, reminding him, _You already decided that._

_You just about bullied me into it,_ Leaf rebuffed.

Both of them fell silent as they passed by the quaint buildings on the way out of town. Leaf pulled out a road map at a red light and traced their path on the thick paper. He'd already highlighted it in green. The road map sprawled, edges bent up stiffly, on the seat beside him as he pulled onto the interstate.

Old-fashioned houses and shops turned to office buildings, then to skyscrapers, then to suburbs and fast-food restaurants, and then, abruptly, to nothing. Or, so it seemed. The grainy, worn, gray road and flat, cracked sands may as well have been nothing after the profusion of multi-colored buildings, pampered shrubs, café umbrellas and slow-moving delivery trucks that crowded the town he had left behind. The sky hung high above him, such a pale, uniform blue that he could have believed it to be an eggshell-thin porcelain bowl resting over the earth. In his head, Peeta sighed and stretched happily, immeasurably glad to be out of the crush of people that came with living in a city.

The road, straight as a ruler, stopped somewhere near the horizon, dissolving into a gray and tan smudge, running into oblivion. After half an hour of waiting for something – a turn, a sign, another car, anything – Leaf clicked on the cruise control and glanced down at the map, still fluttering in the stream of air conditioning on the passenger side seat. For a moment, he just admired it, thinking how immensely glad he was that there was a road map there and not the Seeker. Then he turned his attention dutifully back on the road, watching the white stripes flick past his front bumper.

An hour passed. Then two.

Leaf wondered idly why Peeta was being so quiet. He had guessed he would have spoken up by now, started a conversation to pass the time, but he was silent. Curious, he searched inside his own mind, growing mildly worried. Had something happened to him? No, he was there. There, but… quiet. Reflective. It took Leaf some moments to realize that Peeta was caught up in a memory. And by the time he realized that, it was too late. He was sucked in, thrown into the memory, eyes focused unseeingly on the horizon while the sensations battered him from inside.

_It's summertime. The deep, thick, sticky kind of summertime that drives half the population into swimming pools, ice baths and ponds, and the other half into the bar. My brothers and I are of the 50% that head straight for our own personal pool: Leevy's Mud Puddle, the closest thing to a neighborhood pool there is in the muggy little town of Twelve Pines, tucked in the folds between mountains._

_Our old delivery truck, streaked blue and amber with house paint and stamped with the stenciled letters, MELLARK BAKERY, stalls at the bridge, as always. Rye and I get out to push. As always. It starts up again, after some cajoling, once it clears the uneven, splintery planks. As always. _

_Nothing ever changes here._

_We park the truck at the side of the chalky, dirt road about a quarter mile away from our destination. To ten-year-old legs, that quarter mile feels like a thousand. But I know what waits at the end of the quickly-tapering, one-lane road, and it's well worth the walk._

_Sand offers me a crinkling plastic bottle of water from the small cooler he lugs and I take a deep gulp from it. I wish I could pour it over my head. The deeper into the woods we go, the hotter it seems to become. Everything is so _green_, like a Christmas store without the red. Like we're trekking through a jungle._

_Soon enough – although not nearly as soon as I would like – there's a glimmer of water through the leaves ahead. We quicken our pace, forsaking the winding ribbon of a trail to lope eagerly through the underbrush. We burst from the tree line, whooping, and plunge into the freezing water. How the pond can be so cold during such a hot day, I'll never know._

_Leevy's Mud Puddle is, at the moment, shockingly empty. Maybe everyone decided to stay home today, draping themselves in front of clattering swamp coolers or rolling around in sprinklers. Or maybe it's too early, and people will start arriving within the next hour. Either way, my brothers and I are almost alone in the deep, murky, green water. The only other people here are two girls at the opposite shore, splashing each other and shrieking and shaking water out of their eyes._

_My own eyes drop quickly when I recognize them. One blonde head, wet hair plastered to her back and shoulders, and one dark one. Katniss and Primrose Everdeen. I risk glancing back up at them from under my eyelashes as they play, unafraid, in the deepest end of the pond. Katniss's hair, instead of being tied up in her usual braids, is gathered at the back of her head in a dripping ponytail, and it swings back and forth as she lunges at her little sister. Both of them go under momentarily, then surface, Primrose sputtering and swiping her hair out of her face and Katniss cackling in triumph -_

_There's a yank on my leg and I'm ducked underwater, foam and silt burning my eyes and bubbles popping in my ears. I kick frantically to free myself, writhing until the tether on my ankle releases me, and surface. My brothers guffaw as I spit out pond water. I must be sunburned already, because the tips of my ears and my cheeks are hot._

_"You guys are hilarious," I deadpan, which just sends them into another fit of self-congratulatory laughter and high-fives._

_"Maybe we wouldn't have ducked you if you hadn't been so busy staring at your girrrrrrrl-friend," Rye taunts, drawing out the word with puckered lips._

_I send a spray of water in his face, ordering him fiercely to shut up, but the blush – no, _sunburn_ – spreads further down my neck._

_I take one more fleeting look at Katniss, only to find that her silvery eyes are already fixed on me. Automatically, I look away, trying to act as if I hadn't seen, but I can still feel her eyes on me._

_I feel her eyes on me again an hour later, when she and her little sister slip out of the water, wrap themselves in tropical patterned towels and vanish into the forest with a parting glance._

The memory faded out gently, leaving Leaf blinking at the road in front of him. Thank goodness it never curved, or he would have driven straight off the road and into a ditch. Checking the time on the dashboard, he saw that there were still a couple hours until he would reach –

Wait.

He pumped the brakes, slowing gradually until he was barely crawling forward. The sign he had almost passed said RIDING CROP 5 MILES. Riding Crop? Where was that? He traced his finger along the road map, scanning it for the unfamiliar name. They weren't supposed to have passed anything called Riding Crop. In fact, he couldn't even find it on the map.

_Where are we?_ he asked.

He hadn't really been expecting an answer, but when Peeta remained unresponsive, his brow knit in a small frown. Tucking the road map back in its place, he accelerated again, making up his mind to stop at this Riding Crop place and see if anyone could tell him where he was.

Peeta was still buried in his own memories.


	4. Chapter 4

**Note: this story used to be in the Hunger Games / The Host crossover category, but because of some bugs on the site, I moved it to the regular Hunger Games fanfiction category. Don't worry - it's still the same story, and it's still a HG/H crossover, it's just in a different place. Sorry for the inconvenience. :)**

**Thank you so much to all of you who have followed. It means a lot to me.**

**Psst - reviews really do make me write faster. Just sayin'. :)**

**Enjoy, my lovely readers! I love you all! (Mwah!)**

* * *

Riding Crop had a population of exactly fifty three, as Leaf found out from the older-than-old wooden sign swinging in the desert wind. It was the kind of place you would expect a cheesy cowboy movie to take place in. Apart from the fact that its name was _Riding Crop_, which would have given the nostalgic cinematic feel all by itself, it looked as if a tumbleweed would roll down the road any moment, followed by a band of bandana-wearing, pistol-wielding men on lean horses, whooping as they chased down a black-clad outlaw.

This, of course, all came from Peeta's memories of the movies his father had a special preference for: spaghetti westerns.

_Yeah, those were fun,_ Peeta piped up, giving Leaf a start. _Did I scare you? _he added almost smugly as the car pulled to a stop in front of a convenience store.

"Just startled," Leaf replied, reaching for the map on the passenger seat. "Where've you been?"

_Only place I can go, buddy. In your head._

"Oh, so now it's _my _head?" Leaf glanced up from the map to make sure the windows were all closed and no one could hear him talking to himself. Not that it really mattered. The only other person in sight was a bored-looking cashier behind the convenience store counter, reading a tattered magazine.

They were both quiet for a moment as he studied the map, searching for any indication that he had made a wrong turn or gone past a crucial exit.

The sun beat down, bright and yellowish, the same color as the sand that blew against the car in raspy hisses. With the engine off, the invigorating stream of cold air had cut off, too, leaving Leaf wishing they could be on their way again, if only to have the air conditioning back. "Any idea where we are?" he asked hopefully.

_Haven't the foggiest._

Leaf paused at the tone of Peeta's voice. Had he spoken – well, _thought_ – a bit too quickly? Or was it just the unfamiliar phrase that was tripping him up?

_Look, let's hang out here for a bit,_ Peeta suggested. He nudged at Leaf with thoughts of a cold drink and air conditioning inside the small building. _We can pick up some snacks, stretch, maybe ask the cashier for directions._

The idea was appealing. Maybe a quick stretch would be nice. _Plus,_ he thought to himself as he pulled the key from the ignition and shoved the door open with one foot, _more time here means more time away from the Seeker._

He immediately ducked his head guiltily, as if the cashier could see the selfish thought bouncing around inside his skull. But he didn't take it back, and, as he walked into the convenience store, he felt Peeta silently agreeing. Within the short span of a few weeks, both of them had come to dislike the Seeker, Leaf with quiet resentment and Peeta with open loathing.

"Good afternoon," the cashier chirped before the door even closed behind him. "Anything I can help you with?"

"No, just browsing," Leaf said, and then, upon seeing her almost disappointed expression, continued, "But, if you're bored, I'd love to know where the bottled water is."

The cashier hopped off her stool and skipped her way to the back of the store, low pigtails bouncing, and pointed exuberantly to a metal shelf stocked with plastic bottles of various shapes and sizes. They ranged from round, almost pocket-sized eight ounce containers to two-gallon bottles that barely fit on the low shelf. Better go with the one-gallons. They would fit better in –

_One gallons? Fit __better?_

Leaf shook himself, perplexed by the sudden direction of his thoughts, and smiled at the cashier. "Thanks. That's just what I was looking for."

She grinned and flitted back to her perch behind the counter, plucking the magazine from its place on a rack.

Leaf selected a twenty-ounce bottle, ignoring Peeta's fixation on the gallon bottles on the bottom shelf, and turned to the check-out.

_What about snacks?_ Peeta reminded him.

He sighed and wheeled around again, reaching automatically for a bag of beef jerky. _Actually, better get two,_ he thought to himself, remembering how quickly he could go through food when he was bored. Often, while typing away at a news story, he would empty a whole bag of chips without thinking about it. Driving would be just as bad, if not worse. Two bags of dried apples joined the jerky. Then a box of granola bars. He was starving. How long had it been since he'd eaten? Not since breakfast. He hooked one wrist around the handles of one of the shopping baskets near the doors and continued to add to the small pile. Cherry Coke. Toasted almonds. Trail mix.

_I always used to eat peanut butter on crackers in the car, when I was a kid,_ Peeta mused.

The store had jars of peanut butter, and crackers were arranged in neat rows in the thrid isle. Leaf added them to his basket.

_May as well get some desert, too. I mean, we have a solid two or three car meals here._

Ghirardelli chocolate squares. Marshmallows.

Leaf stopped dead in his tracks when he realized what was happening. Beef jerky, dried fruit, trail mix, peanut butter… All fairly lightweight. All high in nutrients. Inside his head, Peeta stiffened. Leaf stared at the basket in his hand. It was stocked with food that wouldn't spoil, wouldn't be too heavy to carry.

"You –!" he began out loud before remembering the cashier. _You were getting things to eat on the run. Weren't you? _he accused.

Peeta was quiet, shifting uneasily within his mental confines. _Leaf, look…_

_It's bad enough getting stuck in your memories,_ he continued unhappily, ducking behind a shelf so he could scowl unobserved. _Now your habits are affecting me, too. Look, we don't need to hoard things like you did when you were on the run. That's all done, okay? We can stop at a fast food place. We don't need this._

Peeta relaxed. _Right,_ he said, and it sounded like a sigh of relief. _Right. I'm sorry. It's just hard to break old habits. From my perspective…_ He paused, then went on carefully. _This feels a lot like… Well, when I had to sneak into places to get food. I'm used to grabbing what I can and running. I'm sorry for carrying that into your life._ His tone was remorseful, and Leaf softened. He couldn't blame Peeta. Not really.

Leaf leaned against a shelf, gazing at his car through the glossy front windows. _It's all right. _Then, because he wanted to keep up the tenuous alliance – friendship? – they had, he added, _I'm not mad at you._

_I'm glad._

He nudged the basket, which he had set on the floor, with his foot. _Think I should put all this stuff back?_

_Wouldn't that look kind of suspicious? _Peeta prodded Leaf's attention towards the cashier, who was still reading her magazine. _If you picked up a bunch of stuff and then put it back? Better just buy it. It'll be good, anyway._

Relenting, Leaf started towards the counter, but he pulled up sharply when Peeta cried, _Wait!_

_What now?_ he asked, a little crossly.

Peeta fidgeted. He didn't say anything, but Leaf sensed what he wanted to do.

_I told you, we don't need it. We'll get something to drink at the next rest stop._

Anxiety rolled off Peeta's silent presence in increasingly urgent waves. He was so focused on the shelf just behind them that Leaf had to consciously stop himself from turning to stare at it.

_Humor me?_ was Peeta's quiet plea.

"Oh, fine," Leaf grumbled aloud, turning and hefting four gallons of pure, unflavored water. "I'll need something to put them in," he thought aloud.

There was a rack of sturdy-looking hiking backpacks by the front counter. One bright orange one was the last item to be added to the extravagant pile of supplies.

_Happy? _he asked, setting the backpack, basket of food and four large, heavy bottles on the counter.

_Quite,_ was Peeta's short but contented answer.

"Going hiking?" the cashier chirped, scanning his items and foregoing plastic bags to instead pack the food directly into the backpack.

"No, actually, I'm just on a short road trip."

_Aren't you going to pay?_ Peeta asked, noticing Leaf's lack of money. _Wait, do we have enough money for all this?_

_Don't need to._

"Oh." The cashier accepted the explanation without question and handed him the full backpack. She double-bagged the bottles of water as she continued. "I was going to suggest Hob Peak."

Something about the name snagged Peeta's interest. "Hob Peak?" Leaf asked, a bit curious himself.

The cashier pulled out a road map and a brochure from behind the counter. She unfolded both, which took up most of the counter space, and pointed to a picture on the brochure. In the photo, a jagged rock formation jutted up out of the yellow desert sands, worn away to a sharp, lopsided M by wind and time. The image seemed to hit Peeta like a brick.

_It's that close? _He sounded bewildered and, strangely, elated.

The cashier confirmed it by tapping one neatly manicured finger on a dot on the road map. _HOB PEAK – REST STOP, TRAILHEAD, PHOTO OP_, it read in blocky, miniscule print. She traced an equally diminutive line from the pinhead-sized dot marking the location to another, even smaller dot. Riding Crop.

_Why? What's special about it?_ Leaf prodded, trying to see into Peeta's memories. All he was able to come up with was an old, faded memory, obviously from Peeta's childhood. A large, calloused hand sketched out a series of lines. Two smaller, chubby hands, no doubt belonging to little Peeta, doodled aimlessly in the margins. _What's that?_

"It's a tourist location," the cashier was saying, oblivious to Leaf's preoccupation. "There's a nice little café, and there's a trail that goes up between the peaks. My partner works there as a tour guide. You should check it out, if you have time."

She beamed with pride at her partner's occupation, and Leaf found himself saying, "Yeah, definitely."

It was an automatic response. Polite. But the moment he said it he knew it meant more to Peeta than just a vague gesture of kindness.

Leaf thanked the cashier, took his backpack and water and left the store in a hurry. He waited long enough to situate the food in front of the passenger seat before saying, "Okay, what's up? Why is that place important?"

Peeta started and stopped several times, apparently unsure how to phrase his answer. _Hob Peak,_ he said at last, _was a place that we… Katniss and Prim and I… always said we would go. We… never got the chance to._

Leaf sensed that there was more to the story, but his throat was constricting from Peeta's unstable emotions, so he swallowed and said, "What about those lines? From the memory?"

_Oh… those…_ Peeta was slipping, maybe into a memory, and Leaf had to concentrate to make out his response. _They're for Hob Peak… Part of our plan… I wonder…_

"Wonder what? Wonder _what?_"

Too late. Peeta was deep in another memory, and Leaf had no intention of following him this time.

He looked down at the road map, still open on the passenger seat. Now that he knew a major landmark, it was surprisingly easy to find Riding Crop on the map. It was just such a tiny, almost nonexistent place that his eyes had skipped right over it in his previous searches. Hob Peak was larger, on the map and in real life. It's label was small but bold. He eyed the map key, gaze wandering between the two points. Not that far, really. And, he _had_ told the cashier he would check it out. What would be the harm? Maybe he could even use his hiking backpack for actual hiking. Make an afternoon of it. Then he would have a suitable excuse for being late for the Seeker.

He cringed guiltily for what felt like the hundredth time, but his hands were steady on the steering wheel as he pulled out of the gritty parking lot. What was the worst that could happen?

* * *

According to the large, multipurpose signs that flashed past on one side of the road, Leaf had about five miles to go before he reached Hob Peak. He checked the road map one more time, then glanced at the backpack. He could take it with him on the hike and munch on snacks as he walked. According to what he remembered of the brochure, the trail was seven miles long, but he didn't need to go the whole way. Just two or three miles. A mile in and a mile back. A nice little walk to stretch his legs and see some pretty landscapes before getting back in the car and driving the rest of the way to Burns to Cinders's place of work. Maybe he could jot down some notes and write a recommendation for the papers.

_This'll be fun, right?_ he tested, but Peeta was still silent and remote. It had been that way since they left Riding Crop. He seemed to be drifting from memory to memory. They all had an upbeat feel to them, even without actually experiencing them, and Leaf's stomach clenched as he realized that Peeta might be saying goodbye. He might be reliving his best memories because it might be the last time he got the chance to. No matter what Leaf had promised, once he spoke to Cinna, the decision would be in the Healer's hands. And Cinna, unlike Leaf, could look at the situation objectively. He might even tell the Seeker, and then…

_Hey,_ Leaf thought, distracting himself with a fresh attempt at rousing Peeta. _Hey. We're going to Hob Peak. That place you were going to go with Katniss? We're going to go hiking there. Don't you want to see that?_

Peeta responded with a brief flicker of interest before sinking back into his own thoughts. Leaf considered it a success.

_What are you so caught up in?_ he thought, more to himself than to Peeta, and made the tiniest of movements towards the memory.

Mistake.

_Februarys are always the coldest month here. Lakes-frozen-solid cold. No-driving-because-it's-too-icy cold. Give-you-frostbite-if-you're-not-careful cold. But, especially, cuddle-someplace-warm-with-loved-ones cold. For little kids, that means pressing up against their parents and older siblings on the couch, watching Disney movies and drinking hot cocoa. For couples, it means endless stolen hours wrapped in blankets and each other. For my family, it means hiding away in the kitchens, where the ovens are blazing heartily, and producing all manner of baked goods._

_Mellark Bakery is one of the only places that doesn't close when blizzard season hits. It's just us, the reliably busy bar and the grocery store. Need anything else? Wait 'till spring._

_On days like these, my whole family gathers in the kitchen in the back of the bakery, kneading, icing, decorating and mixing until our arms are sore and our faces are ruddy with the welcome heat of the ovens. The windows of the entire building steam up, softening the sharp outlines of the icicles outside._

_My mother is at the counter, helping customers. Considering the ice storm raging outside, a surprising number of people are here for cakes, cookies and bread. But, then again, not that surprising. After all, today is the thirteenth. Tomorrow will be Valentine's Day. Vast amounts of chocolate will be bought and consumed within the span of twenty-four hours. Hugs and kisses exchanged._

_The wind rattles the window panes – actually _rattles_ them, like you always read about in books – and I flinch. I wish it would stop storming. For once, I actually want there to be school tomorrow._

_A warm, heavy, floury hand thumps my shoulder twice. "Worried, son?" my father asks gently. "Don't be. All our ovens are wood-burning. If the power goes out, we'll still be warm."_

_I nod absently. That's not what I'm nervous about. My father goes back to kneading and I glance furtively at my brothers, both busy with pastries, before continuing work on the three cookies. These cookies won't be sold, though, like the rest of the batch. Twenty-one other, identical cookies sit cooling on a rack. _Those_ will be going to the front of the shop to be sold. Not these._

_Very carefully, using all of my almost-fourteen years of experience in the bakery, I pipe three different images onto the flat disks: a white, three-petaled flower with a crimson dot at the base of each petal; a delicate, sunny yellow flower; a pink-and-red heart. Before I can change my mind, I place the cookies inside a brown paper bag, fold down the top and place it aside._

_I look up to find I've been caught. My father's bright blue eyes are following me, a slight smile quirking up the corners of his lips. I move the bag slightly behind me, crinkling the paper in my haste, but he just smiles wider and turns back to his work. I wonder if he knows. Guesses, at least. It's more than possible. My father has always been able to read me like an open book._

_Every so often throughout the remainder of the day, I glance at the inconspicuous paper bag that rests at the corner of the counter, between a flour bin and a mixing bowl, and I promise myself I won't chicken out. I'm giving the cookies to Katniss Everdeen if it kills me. I'll actually talk to her._

_But the next day, when I spot her weaving through the hallways of our fifty-year-old K-12 school, her heavy braid swishing behind her like a horse's tail, I can't move my feet forward. I tell myself I'll give them to her during science. We have first period together, after all. What better time?_

_I walk into the classroom, feeling as if I'm flashing neon colors with the small bag in my hand, paper now crinkled and warm from my nervous grip. Katniss is already at her desk, quietly taking out her pencil and binder. My seat is just a couple rows behind her. I can give it to her on the way by. Drop it on her desk, maybe? I'm just yards away. Feet away._

_I can't._

_I shuffle quickly past, head down, ashamed at my own cowardice. I silently yell at myself to man up, take a deep breath, turn around, turn back towards my chair and sit down, defeated. I rake my fingers through my hair, mussing it up, and slide off my backpack dejectedly. The bag sits on my desk, the carefully printed words _For Katniss_ visible now that I'm no longer holding it. It seems silly, now. Cookies? Really? And with her and her sister's namesakes iced on them? And a _heart_? I shake my head at myself. It's like something from one of those stupid romance movies my mom watches on Saturdays, after my dad has had his fill of old Westerns. No, worse. Like something from Charlie Brown. Yes, that's better. If Charlie Brown is the Charlie Browniest in the world, I'm the Peeta Mellarkiest._

_I remember that line word-for-word, I've seen the old cartoon so many times. _"Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Maybe Lucy's right. Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest."_ It may not be Christmas, but I've certainly turned this holiday into a problem. For me, at least._

_The bell is about to ring, and I'm still staring bleakly at the paper bag when movement catches my eye. I glance up to realize that Katniss is leaving the room. My mind starts whirring. If it was a machine, it would be throwing off sparks. No one else is in the room. Everyone is in the hallways, exchanging valentines or just dawdling. Katniss's backpack is sitting under her desk, wide open._

_Moving as quickly and quietly as I can, I hop up, grab the cookies, tiptoe-run to her desk and place it inside the mouth of her backpack. Then I stroll out of the room, trying to look nonchalant, and spend the two minutes before the bell rings wandering back and forth between rows of 8th-grade-designated lockers. When class starts and everyone crowds inside the room, slumping into various chairs, I watch Katniss from under my eyelashes. She's reaching for something in her backpack when her fingers brush the paper, and she pulls back, frowning slightly. Mr. Robin is just taking roll when she pulls out the crumpled bag, stares silently at the words written on the side, then opens it. Her face is equal parts surprise and confusion as her silver eyes dart around the classroom, no doubt searching for the perpetrator. I hurriedly drop my gaze, focusing intently on my notes about cells._

_That day at lunch, I see her turning the cookies around and around in her hands, admiring them, until they start to crumble around the edges. She eats one, slowly, taking small bites from the un-iced edge before attacking the middle. She puts away the two others. I wonder if she's saving them for the little sister she loves so much._

Go talk to her,_ I tell myself. But just when I stand up, two of my friends arrive at the table, talking loudly about a hockey game, and I sit down again. _Next time,_ I promise myself._

_The funny thing is, I've been postponing 'next time' time and time again for the past eight years. I'm starting to wonder if it will ever come._

_Maybe I'll be thirty years old and I still won't have mustered the courage to talk to the girl with the braid._

The memory released him abruptly, and the heat of the afternoon was so different from the soft, white, bone-chilling winds of an Appalachian February that he was momentarily disoriented.

That was all it took.

His arms jerked stiffly, wrenching the steering wheel to the right. He slammed on the brakes, but it was too late – the car skidded on the sandy road, tires finding no traction on the asphalt, and Leaf didn't even have time to shout before the roadside ditch rose up to swallow him. The front fender struck the bottom of the deep trench and his whole skull rattled. Then everything was still.

Leaf panted, hands still clenched around the steering wheel, foot pushing down pointlessly on the brake pedal. It took several minutes to gather his wits enough to try backing out. The engine whirred and the car lurched, then settled back into the ditch with a crunch. The obnoxious clatter of gravel hitting the underside of the car was the only other noise. Shakily, he shoved on the door, which would only open about a foot, and stumbled out. The reason for the car's lack of movement was immediately apparent: the two back wheels were elevated up off the ground. The right one just barely touched the lip of the ditch, and a gouge had been scraped out of the earth where the wheel had been spinning uselessly.

"Okay," he said, and his voice shook more badly than his hands. "Okay, this… This is okay. Just put it in neutral and push it back to the road."

It didn't take long at all to determine that pushing it back to the road was not going to be an option. The ditch was so deep that he had a hard time getting himself out, much less the car. Looking down at it from the edge of the asphalt, he could see there was no way the vehicle was moving any time soon.

Sand and gravel hissed as he slid back down, crawling into the drivers' seat once more. As his adrenaline spike from the sort-of-crash tapered off, he thought back to the moments before. Peeta's memory about Valentine's Day had just ended. His arms had jerked… Clumsily, like he was a puppet with an overzealous puppeteer… He looked down at his still-trembling fingers. A muscle spasm, maybe?

Peeta made a small, uncomfortable noise – more of a mental gesture, really, like he was rubbing at his neck – and Leaf was finally able to put the pieces together.

"You tricked me," he said hoarsely. Betrayal welled up in his chest, thick and constricting like cotton. He had never felt it before. He never wanted to again. "You lied to me."

_I'm sorry._

"Why would you do that?" Leaf's voice was rising, but it didn't matter. There was no one around to hear.

_I had to. You know I had to._ The scared, desperate faces of Katniss and Prim flashed through Peeta's mind. _I have to at least try to find them. I won't give up._

"You don't even know where they are!" Leaf fumed. For the first time, he felt the urge to hit something. To lash out. Startled at his own volatile emotions, he clenched his fists and gazed towards the painfully bright sky, trying to calm himself. _This is fixable. I'll find a way to fix this. It'll be fine._

Peeta waited until he was done reassuring himself to make the quiet statement. _Actually, I do know where they are._

Leaf couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice. "You do?"

_ I know where they might be,_ Peeta amended.

Angry as he was, Leaf knew it was pointless to try to stop himself from saying, "Where?" Katniss's face appeared in his mind again. He could see her. For real. Hear her voice. It was possible. A thrill ran up his back.

_Remember Hob Peak?_

"There?" he said, puzzled. Then, upon glancing around, he realized that Hob Peak was no longer on the horizon. He quickly located its crooked shape behind him. Caught up in Peeta's memory, he'd driven right past it.

_Not exactly… You remember the lines?_

"Yes, of course, that was half an hour ago. Why?"

Leaf could feel Peeta gearing up to say something, as if telling him held a fair amount of risk. At last he said, _The lines… They were directions. To a safe place. Katniss and Prim's uncle, Haymitch, drew them._ His words came out in a rush, now. _It's where we were going, what we were travelling towards that whole time. Where we said we'd meet if we got separated. They're there – I _know_ they are! They're smart. They would have made it. Please, Leaf. Please, we're so close. We have food and enough water to last four days. That's plenty enough time to find them._

With every word Peeta thought, Leaf could feel his resolve slipping. His gaze turned longingly to Hob Peak. Wasn't he just thinking that he wanted to see Katniss? No, not wanted. Needed. His arms physically ached with the need to hold her, to make sure she was all right. Peeta's memories of embraces, of caresses, floated through his mind. And Prim. Sweet Prim. Was she all right? She was strong, but also so fragile, like the evening primrose she was named after… How could he give up on them, especially when they were so close?

_But, how close is 'so close'?_ the logical part of his mind spoke up. _And why should I risk everything for two human girls? They're just humans. Humans I haven't even met. Memories. Would I betray my own kind for them?_

_Not far,_ Peeta answered his first question mildly. _Just a couple of days worth._

_But the car's stuck._

_Not a couple of days of driving,_ Peeta explained patiently. _A couple of days of walking._

Leaf balked. The farthest he ever walked was five miles, at most, to an interview. And that was on sidewalks, in the shade of houses and with a Starbucks every mile, should he need a rest.

_It's not that far,_ Peeta assured him. _Heck, do you remember how far I used to walk just to get dinner?_

_You had the Jeep,_ Leaf rebuffed, but he did remember. All day and all night, legs aching, feet sore, hunger distracting him, just to crawl in the open window of some house in the suburbs and take whatever was in the fridge, then bolt. He did remember. And it wasn't making the concept any more pleasant.

_We have supplies,_ Peeta reminded him again.

"We have a couple of bottles of water and some snacks. We need a tent. We need a GPS. We need a whole ATV, for heaven's sakes!" Then, thinking back, he realized something else. "Wait. Were you planning this? When you made me get all that stuff, were you planning this?"

_Yes,_ Peeta answered, without remorse. _I've been planning to do something like this since your visit with the pink lady. What was her name? Effie?_

_All that time?_ Leaf felt slightly sick. That was… How long? About a month? And not once had he anticipated anything like this.

_I couldn't give up._

"I know," he sighed, lowering himself to sit on the hot, slanted roof of the car.

Peeta allowed him a solid five minutes to stare off into space, thinking. Then he said, firmly, _Let's go._

Leaf traced the points of Hob Peak with his eyes. He could see Katniss and Prim. He really could. He was prepared… Well, as prepared as he could be. And, really, what waited for him at the end of the road? A Healer that would advise he get a different body and the Seeker, triumphant and caustic in his defeat. He would be transferred to a different host and go on living, quite honestly, a lonely life writing about the weather and community projects. Peeta would be… disposed of.

Slowly, he pushed himself away from the car. He slipped and stumbled around to the other side, and the passenger door swung open loosely at a touch, like a broken jaw. He opened the backpack and took out all the food, making room for two of the gallon bottles, then shoved the snacks into the smaller pockets. He would have to carry the two other bottles, one in each hand. When centered on his shoulders, the weight of the backpack didn't feel like that much, really. He took this as a good sign as he faced Hob Peak.

"Okay. Which way first?"

Peeta mentally pointed just West of Hob Peak. _We're looking for this,_ he said, then showed Leaf another line, this one a blunt, upside-down V with two smaller bumps to either side.

Leaf looked back at the car, giving himself one last chance to change his mind. Then he faced forward, crossed the road and began his journey into the pale sand, sharp sun and dry, spicy wind.


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm back from hiatus! And I'm SO excited for you guys to read the next few chapters, you have no idea. :D :D**

**Thanks to all of you who waited patiently for this!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Leaf awoke without opening his eyes. The sun burned through is eyelids, setting everything reddish orange when it should have been black. He parted his lips, hot air baking his cheeks and throat, and ran his sticky tongue over plaque-coated teeth.

_Water,_ was his first thought, and he began to open his eyes. An intense stinging along the line of his eyelashes made him wince, and he reached up, clumsy with sleep, to rub away the rheum that glued his lids together. They parted and light burst through, sharp and painful. He moaned.

The backpack was still lying behind him, pressed to his back, the way he'd fallen asleep, but the two other gallons of water were guarded closely by his curled-up form. The evening before, when dusk had fallen and Peeta suggested he pick a spot and get some sleep, he'd placed the two gallons that didn't fit in the backpack in front of him. His arms had curled over them, protecting his most vital source of life. Now, as he twisted off the cap of one, the last few tablespoons swirled at the bottom. Condensation made the plastic sides of the bottle glitter, dew-like in the scorching sun. It would evaporate within minutes. Leaf dragged his lips over the condensation, not willing to waste a single drop of water, before tipping the last bit of the bottle into his mouth.

One gallon gone. Three left.

_You're doing very well,_ Peeta said, startling him so much he jerked. _One gallon per day. That's how much you're supposed to drink. That gives us three more days to find them._

Leaf groaned and leaned back on the sand. In the sixty seconds since he sat up, the sun had heated it to a sizzling degree. "I don't," he tried to say, but phlegm clogged his voice and it came out a painful whisper. He cleared his throat, opened the second gallon bottle and took three generous swallows. He could have steeped tea in the liquid for how warm it was. "I don't know if I can make it another day," he croaked. "Let alone three."

_Come on. It wasn't that bad yesterday._

Peeta showed Leaf images of him striding through the desert, eyes on the mountains in the distance, taking sips of water every once in a while. Peeta had strictly rationed the water, constantly warning, _One gallon a day, that's all you get. You run out of water in this bottle, you don't get to open another until tomorrow._ He barely noticed the weight of the two gallon bottles in the backpack, but the two that he carried pulled at his arms like anchors. His forearms, shoulders and back felt stretched, as if hefting the two gallon bottles had pulled his arms down to his feet.

Now, he stared at the used gallon bottle in his hand, debating whether or not to take it with him. He didn't see much sense in carrying an empty bottle, but Peeta's discomfort leaked through to his mind.

_Bury it,_ he suggested. _Then it can't be found. Not anytime soon, anyway._

Reluctantly, Leaf dug into the abrasive, crusty ground with the toe of one shoe, kicking away chunks until he had to stand to make the hole any bigger. When he lifted himself onto his feet, his vision blackened momentarily as the blood drained from his head. His sight came swimming back and he swayed, just managing to stay on his feet long enough to kick out a large enough hole and drop the bottle in. He stomped on it to crush it and covered it up with sprays of sand.

When he half-fell back onto the ground, Peeta soothed, _It gets easier once you start moving again._

Leaf grunted.

_Here,_ he suggested, _Why don't you eat something?_

Leaf dragged the backpack around in front of him and fumbled with the zipper. He lifted out the two gallons in the backpack, counting the remaining bottles with deliberation – _One, two, three_ – and rummaged inside the bag. The bottle of cherry Coke had been drained almost immediately the day before, along with most of the trail mix and a bag of dried apples. He frowned as he set out his remaining supplies on the sand between his crossed legs.

Two bags of beef jerky, one bag of dried apples, six granola bars. Toasted almonds, a box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, Ghirardelli chocolate squares and marshmallows.

_Were you planning on making s'mores?_ he asked dryly, stuffing the marshmallows back into the backpack. Some of them had already started to melt together.

_Sugar,_ Peeta explained. _For quick energy. The rest is for nutrients, though._

Then, as Leaf started to replace the peanut butter, Peeta said, _Wait. Eat a few crackers with peanut butter on them. It's a good source of protein. You'll need it._

The peanut butter stuck in his teeth and on the roof of his mouth, making it feel even drier than before. He rubbed away at the sticky, nutty paste with his tongue as he began to walk. Searching out stubborn bits of peanut butter gave him something to distract himself with as he hiked. Peeta was right: it got easier once he started moving, but not by much. His joints and muscles hadn't enjoyed the night on the ground at all, and his stomach constantly twisted, expecting breakfast, snacks, lunch. All it got was five crackers smeared with peanut butter and a few mouthfuls of warm water.

Peeta showed him the lines one at a time, revealing a new one every time he spotted a familiar shape on the horizon. They played Twenty Questions for a while, until they tired of the game, then switched to riddles. This was an exercise in concentration as well as a twist of thought, since they had to focus on keeping the answer shielded from the other. Leaf was glad for the challenge, though. It held his thoughts away from his painfully growling stomach and dwindling water supply.

When the sun hovered directly above them, making the shadow-less landscape appear flat and shimmering with heat, Peeta gave the all-clear for lunch. Leaf plopped down, narrowly missing a low-growing cactus, and eagerly pulled out a square of chocolate. It had melted in its wrapper long ago, and he squeezed it onto his tongue, peeling apart the plastic to lick off the last bits of oozing sweetness. The sugary taste was nearly as much of a relief as the following sip of water. His mouth had tasted like grit and bile ever since that morning.

Fingerfuls of peanut butter, dried apple slices and beef jerky made up his lunch.

_You're doing great,_ Peeta encouraged as he stood up wearily, stretching his arms above and behind him. Dry peanut butter crusted under his nails, and he rubbed them absentmindedly.

_If stranded, dehydrated, insane, tired, lost and running out of supplies is 'great',_ he thought, already scanning for the next formation – a half-circle mound, slashed diagonally on one side. He took another swallow of water, then winced, waiting for a reprimand. Peeta was distracted, though, drifting with some memory.

_No, thank you,_ Leaf thought to himself. He remembered all too clearly what happened last time he followed Peeta into a memory.

He took advantage of his absence to down another four mouthfuls of water without being scolded.

* * *

_I told you, one gallon a day._

_I know._

_I told you not to open another one until the next day. Those were the rules._

_I know._

_Who knows more about surviving in the wild? You or me?_

_You._

_Then what should you have done?_

_Listened to you._

Leaf stared at his shoes as Peeta chastised him like a disobedient child.

_So, why didn't you?_

_I was thirsty!_ Leaf scowled and kicked at the sand. _And hot. And tired._

Listing his discomforts seemed to make them worse, but he went on anyway.

_And hungry. And I want to go home._

Peeta let out a sharp bark of laughter in Leaf's head, and he recoiled at the silent noise. _Home?_ he questioned. _Where's that? The apartment?_

The image was meant to make him agree with Peeta, but Leaf found himself longing for the old apartment building, smelling of coffee and stocked with plenty of snack food and drinks.

_You've let us get soft with all that easy food,_ Peeta snorted. _That's part of the reason you're having so much trouble now._

Leaf couldn't say he disagreed. Since the previous day, when Peeta slipped into a memory, Leaf had drank the rest of his gallon for the day and half of the next. By the time Peeta returned the next morning, he had only a bottle and a half of water left.

_Oh, well,_ Peeta said, his voice softening. _At least we have plenty of food left._

_Plenty? _Leaf mentally went over their stock of snacks. _A bag of dried apples, three granola bars, some crackers, half a jar of peanut butter and marshmallows?_

_Geez, Leaf!_ Peeta exclaimed in alarm. _What else did you do while I was gone, wander all the way to Alaska? Build a signal fire? Destroy a small town?_

Leaf ducked his head, sucking in a dusty lungful of desert air. He coughed.

_Well,_ Peeta sighed, _We'll just have to be more careful from now on._

Leaf placed his feet one in front of the other, slowly, unwilling or unable to go any faster. After what felt like a long time, hours at least, he said, "I'm sorry."

The words burned his blistered throat.

Peeta stewed in his anger for a moment before relenting. _It's all right. I know you're not used to this. It's probably pretty scary for you._

Leaf's steps faltered. _Yeah._

Sensing his growing reluctance, Peeta said, _But think about this: we've only got a few more landmarks left. We might even see Katniss and Prim by tonight._

_"Really?"_ Leaf thought and spoke this, head snapping up, stride quickening. His gaze swung from left to right, already searching. _Show me,_ he urged, and for the first time, Peeta gave him more than one image at once.

First, two mesas with a smooth U scooped out between them. Then a finger of rock, flanked by crooked knobs, pointing towards the sun. A blocky tower, leaning slightly. A shape like the profile of an eagle.

_We just need to get to the eagle, and Bob's your uncle,_ Peeta thought happily, his enthusiasm adding to Leaf's.

_I don't actually know a Bob,_ he thought, puzzled but no less eager. _Is he _your_ uncle?_

_Never mind,_ Peeta said, amused, and Leaf had the feeling that he had missed the meaning of another strange idiom.

His feet propelled him forward until dusk, when he pushed on, stepping on more than one cactus and tripping on rocks in the dark, until Peeta made him lie down.

_You wouldn't be able to see the formations now, anyway,_ he reasoned, then saw the direction of Leaf's thoughts and said, _I know. I miss them, too. We'll see them soon._

The next day left them with less than a gallon of water and nothing but two squashed granola bars and half an inch of peanut butter at the bottom of the jar. Leaf spent his time trying to fit his fist in the jar to reach it, then fashioned a sort of spoon from a stiff plastic bag. As he finished the last of it, Peeta said, _Don't worry. We'll get there soon._

His tone was off, though, and Leaf knew there was an unspoken _I hope_ tacked on to the end this time.

* * *

The water ran out during the hottest part of the day. The granola bars went soon after. The crumbs made him cough incessantly, his mouth unable to produce enough saliva to properly chew them.

He and Peeta no longer spoke. Talking aloud hurt too much and thinking distracted them from searching for landmarks.

Peeta held Katniss's face firmly in their minds, concentrating on it whenever Leaf slowed.

* * *

Leaf was near the end of his endurance, and he knew it. His skin, burnt fire-engine red and peppered with peeling blisters, stretched and stung over muscles that felt like limp rags. His head spun as if he had gotten onto the teacup ride at Disney world, an experience Peeta recalled with a shudder, and breathing pained him. The air seared past his cracked, bleeding lips, past his throat and into his lungs, where it did little to rejuvenate him.

He couldn't remember what the next landmark was. Peeta remembered it for him. A tall finger of rock.

The backpack, though lighter than it had been the entire trip, weighed down on his shoulders with swinging tugs every time he took a step. Part of him wanted to discard it – after all, all it held was empty bags and a crushed gallon bottle – but slowing to slide it off his shoulders would be bad. If he stopped at all, he might not start again.

Katniss's face swam in and out of his vision, lovely but tortured, eyes puffy with tears and eyebrows slanted down in a defiant frown. He didn't know why Peeta chose to remember her this way. Perhaps it was her most commonly worn expression, so recalling it was easiest.

Suddenly, something burbled up from his chest, popping past his lips like bubbles. The hiccupping started off a round of coughing, and then the burbling started again. He realized only after his lips peeled away from his teeth in a mad smile that he was laughing. Or, rather, Peeta was. It was Peeta's insane amusement that had set off the laughter.

_Haymitch was just a crazy old man after all,_ he thought gleefully. _There's nothing out here! Absolutely nothing! We haven't come across a landmark in a day!_

Leaf's chest heaved with the laughter, and with exhaustion. "Crazy," he wheezed, agreeing. The pain in his throat didn't seem worth avoiding, anymore. Why stay silent? He was going to die anyway. "Nothing."

He gasped, morbid humor sending his lungs in painful fits of contracting and releasing. "Nothing's out here." His feet tripped over one another and he wove from side to side, no longer really going forward so much as just moving. "Nothing at all."

For a reason he could not comprehend, the fact was hilarious. "There's nothing out here," he repeated. A jolt sent shockwaves through his body and gravel cut into his knees. His legs jerked three times before he realized he'd fallen. Gruelingly, he pulled one leg forward until his foot rested on the sand, then pushed himself up. He ended up falling on his side, pain lacing through his ribs in a deep, dull ache. The world looped drunkenly around him and he giggled. "Nothing here!"

Peeta, caught up in his hysteria, cackled with him, then slammed into a sobering thought. _Stop!_ he bellowed, and Leaf froze, eyes wide, wondering what had happened.

_You don't think… I mean, you don't think that maybe _they_ tried this?_

For the first time in many days, Leaf's insides flooded with ice. Katniss and Prim. He could well imagine them, two small figures, one light and one dark, loping through the desert… Zigzagging back and forth between landmarks, as he had done… Running out of water, slowing as their muscles dried, finally collapsing, together, somewhere in the sand…

His black humor evaporated in an instant and he found himself on his feet, fueled by their combined horror.

_No,_ Peeta said to himself. _No, Katniss is smart. She would have taken the Jeep, and lots of extra gas, and plenty of water and food. She wouldn't have just walked out into the desert. She's smart. Not stupid like us. She would never have brought Prim here if there was any chance at all that… No. They're safe. They didn't die here. They didn't._

Leaf nodded along with his rant, needing it to be true just as badly as Peeta did. The girl with a dark braid and captivating eyes, nearly as silver as a soul's but without the reflective quality, called to him. In the memories he'd seen her in, she looked at him, beckoned, slipped off into the trees with her hunter's tread. And, in his mind, he followed her. With an intensity that would have startled him, had he not been so numb to the world, he longed for her. On top of all the aches in his body - the ache from sunburn, the ache from hunger, the ache from exhaustion and the ache of dehydration - there came another, sharper, sweeter ache. The ache that Peeta knew well. It started in his chest and flooded to his fingertips. His arms twitched forward, desperate to hold her close to him.

Katniss.

"We're going to die," he said, not sure why the words had passed his lips. Maybe as a warning, maybe as a lament, maybe just to state the facts.

_Yes,_ Peeta agreed contentedly. He wasn't happy to die, Leaf knew, he was happy to have fulfilled his purpose. When Peeta ran onto the tracks, he had hoped to die so that he would never betray his loved ones to the Seekers. Now, it seemed, he was doing just that, be it in a roundabout way.

_Are you sorry?_ Peeta asked.

Leaf contemplated the unexpected question. _Maybe,_ he answered at last. He must have been walking, because the world tipped and jerked around him, but he couldn't feel his feet hit the ground. _I don't know. I don't think so. Katniss and Prim safe… Mockingjay…_

His thought trailed off nonsensically.

The sun descended until it burned in his eyes, but he stared into the brightness, not caring if he went blind from it. His vision fizzed dark at the edges. Was it night coming, or death? He wasn't sure.

He didn't mind dying. But before he did, there was a question that wouldn't be left unanswered. _What are these?_ he whispered, hoping Peeta was lucid enough to understand him. _The bird and the flower…? Saw them after the first memory… Last memory… Whatever…_

Together, they brought forth the two images. The obsidian-black bird, patches of white spreading over the underside of its wings. The little, bright, top-heavy flower.

_Hope,_ Peeta answered, and his contentment turned their lips up in a smile. _They mean hope. The mockingjay… and the dandelion._

So the darkness was night, after all, and not death. Leaf and Peeta weren't particularly surprised to find themselves on the ground, one arm trapped beneath them. Their head twisted, seeking oxygen in the desert air, but it seemed to be made entirely of dust and heat. They let it fill their lungs. Their body coughed weakly, but couldn't dispel it.

A blackness that was not night bled into their vision, and the stars turned above them as they died.

* * *

Cold. Shockingly cold. Dripping down their face, into their eyes, filling their ears. Wet. Wet?

Something else in their ears. A noise. What noise? A voice. Talking. Yes, someone was talking. Not them.

Wet?

_Water!_

Their mouth stretched open on its own, needing no direction from them, searching for the liquid with pathetic gasps. Another noise, low and breathy, and something pressed to their lip. Their weak hands came up to grasp at the source. It was heavy, cold and slick with moisture. Water poured into their mouth, down their throat, choking them, but they didn't stop guzzling, even while they coughed.

Light.

Or, at least, no longer quite as dark.

Their eyes opened into slits, and something moved above them. The heavy, cold, slick thing moved away and their fingers slipped off. They made a sound of protest, and it came out ghastly, like the wheeze of someone dying.

Dying.

_We're going to die._

Those words. Did they mean something? They had spoken them. Yes, they had. When? Why? Die. Death?

They were dying.

Water.

So, not death, after all.

The rim found their lips again and they drank until it was empty. Then another, not as cold but oh, just as heavenly, replaced it, and they drank this too.

Their open eyes began to clear of the indistinct, gray shapes that clouded them. One shape in particular stood out. It moved. They couldn't make sense of it. Then it moved again and resolved itself into the silhouette of a crouching man.

Just as soon as their vision cleared, it seemed, a piercing light swept across their eyes, blinding them again.

"Well then," the voice said – no, sneered. A nasty edge clung to the words. "Isn't this just a dandy little catastrophe."

The voice shattered their consciousness into two separate beings as Leaf recoiled and Peeta choked in shock.

"Haymitch," he gasped, and when he spoke the word his mind connected those two things: the voice of the speaker and Katniss's uncle. The one who had drawn the lines.

Now, they spoke with one voice, though their minds remained distinctly separate. "Katniss!" Peeta struggled to make their half-dead body sit up, scrabbling in the sand. "Katniss! Prim! Are they alive? Are they here?"

Haymitch turned the flashlight sideways, illuminating his own haggard, scruffy face. He rubbed his chin with one hand, studied them, then commented, "Turned centipede and he still hasn't changed much."

* * *

**If you have time, a review would be absolutely lovely. :)**


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